Satan's blog

Brilhante! Um blogue que não lembra ao Diabo:

Jesus Seminar, Jesus who?

My will is done best when cloaked in religous garb. I make my greatest strides on earth by using those who have wandered from the truth, but who retain some vestige of “religion.” My best servants look just like harmless little sheep.

And while it’s not easy finding my religious-looking servants, my work to that end pays handsome dividends. Let me illustrate by introducing one of my
good buds who was in the news today, John Dominic Crossan.

Mr. Crossan is the co-founder of one of my most effective organizations on earth, The Jesus Seminar. I tried for ages to get people to believe Jesus didn’t exist. But the evidence is just too great that he did. So, I hit upon the next best thing: convince people that whoever Jesus is, he is NOT the Jesus in the Gospel accounts of the New Testament. Genius! Pure genius!

Yeah, Jesus existed, but he was just a dude like you and me. Maybe more like me than you. He didn’t do nothin’ too great, no miracles or nothin’. And the resurrection? Are you kidding, moron? Could you do that?

All I had to do was find a suitable servant on earth to carry out my diabolically delicious idea. I needed someone with some religiosity, maybe even a clergy credentials. But I also needed someone who didn’t believe the Bible was the authoritative word of God. So I went wandering among some liberal scholars, from whom I can almost always find a suitable vessel. And I was not disappointed.

I found my buddy Crossan, who is described in a recent article entitled, “Ten
minutes with John Dominic Crossan,” as “arguably the world’s foremost scholar of the historical Jesus.” The foremost scholar? And he doesn’t believe the Bible tells the truth? Yes! Here was a man up to my task.

And I’ve been basking in my glory since the Jesus Seminar’s first meeting twenty-five years ago.

(...)

You see, my servants, Crossan got together a group of very wise men to “decide on the historicity of the deeds and sayings of Jesus.” And guess what they found? Ha ha ha ha ha.

I love it! You know that Lord’s Prayer thing? Our Father, who art in heaven . . . blah, blah, blah . . . ? Well, guess what? According to these smart men, Jesus said only the first two words: “Our Father.” And then he stopped. That’s it: Our Father, period. Ha ha ha ha ha. Are they not geniuses almost like me, or what?

Jesus: “OK, my disciples, you asked me to teach you to pray, so gather around. Here goes, listen carefully: ‘Our Father’.”

Disciples: “Got it. Go on.”

Jesus: “That’s it. ‘Our Father’. Pray that prayer regularly.”

Now, on the serious side, let me tell you, I remember that day the disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray. I was petrified. Jesus was going to teach people to pray?? I was sure that was the beginning of my end, and prepared my troops for the worst. And I heard Jesus utter every word of that prayer. When he got to the part about “your will be done on earth as it is heaven, ” well, if I had a heart it would have sunk on the spot. God’s will on earth?

“He’s doing it!” I screeched. “Get ready for battle!” And we did.

But, funny thing, they didn’t.

At least not later on, they didn’t. We found that once Jesus was gone very few of his disciples ever pray that prayer anymore, except in rote group recitals, in which everyone is concentrating on trying to remember the words. Is that not wild?

But back to my main man Crossan. Not only did his exalted group use their superior human wisdom to determine that Jesus uttered only two words of the Lord’s Prayer, according to this, the Jesus Seminar also rejects as true the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, the virgin birth, all of the miracles found in the Gospel accounts, and over 80% of the teachings normally attributed to Jesus.

Yes. That’s my boy! Does it get any worse than this? My will on earth right before my eyes! Oh, my servants, rejoice!